The Book of Ancient Flying Machines
A text said to describe ancient Indian flying machines, with designs, fuels and pilots' diets, was put to the test by aeronautical engineers. They found the planes couldn't fly.
What was reported
Ancient Indian epics such as the Ramayana describe vimanas, flying chariots of the gods and heroes. In the early 20th century, a man named Pandit Subbaraya Shastry said that he had received, through psychic dictation, an ancient text about building such machines. It was published in 1952 as the Vaimanika Shastra, and later translated into English.
It describes several aircraft in detail, with metals, engines, mirrors and instructions for pilots. Some have claimed it proves ancient India had aeroplanes.
Explanations offered
In 1974, a team at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore studied the designs and concluded that none of them could fly, and that the text was written in the early 20th century, not in ancient times. The flying chariots of the epics are best understood as poetry and myth.
- When
- Dictated 1918–1923; tested in 1974
- Where
- Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
- Witnesses
- Its publishers, and engineers who studied it
- Status
- Disproved
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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